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Beans: Suricoffee, Suriname Robusta, Brazilian Arabica, Paramaribo, Suriname.
Shop: Sweetie Coffee, Palmentuin Grote Combeweg, Paramaribo, Suriname.
Sweetie coffee: Background information.
It was in 2021 that I visited the city of Paramaribo in the South American country Suriname. A country with only 587.000 citizens obviously doesn’t have a big coffee industry or even a coffee scene. To my surprise, however, I ran into Sweetie Coffee and it’s owner Radjen Battja.
Radjen Battja used to live in The Netherlands and got his coffee roaster training from Jan Schuitemaker, co-owner of Varietals Coffee and Coffee Xperts. After returning to Suriname with his family, Radjen decided to start a small coffee business in the capitol Paramaribo. Close to where all the hotels are, Radjen found a promenade of small shops and businesses where his coffee shop would fit nicely and where tourists will drop by often. After a slow start, the shop now is bustling with tourists and regulars who all crave a decent cup of coffee during their stay in the city.
After talking to Radjen, I decided to review his espresso roast, mainly because the main ingredient is a Suriname robusta bean that I have never had before. Of course this isn’t a 90+ coffee, or even a 85+ coffee, but that doesn’t mean that this coffee shouldn’t get a little lime-light on a website like this. So lets open up that package and start brewing.
Suricoffee: Opening the package.
The Suricoffee comes in a plastic bag with a very cool label on the front. It is a portret photo of Radjen, smiling like he always does. The label depicts the name of the roastery, the adress, the name of the coffee and a little flag of Suriname. On the back you will find the roasting date, adres of Sweetie Coffee and of course the varietals that are being used in the coffee. In this case it is a blend of Surinam Robusta and Brazilian Arabica. The package has a ziplock and a degassing valve to keep the coffee fresh, way to go!
When opening the package a buffed dark roast aroma of grain and chocolate comes forth. The color of the beans clearly state that this is an espresso roast. While eating a bean I notice that it is on the soft crispy side and the main flavour is roasted whole grain. Let’s brew!
The Tasting.
I brewed this coffee on my Rocket Giotto R Evoluzione with a set temperature of 95 degrees Celsius. I ground the coffee on my Eureka Atom Specialty 75 at setting 5.5
When you brew this coffee (with a naked portafilter) it is such a joy to look at the brewing process. The thickness of the coffee and the crema make this a perfect coffee for a great photo!
The aroma’s that come off of the brew are that of dark cocoa, chocolate and a cookie sweetness.
Swirling the coffee round in your cup emphasizes the thickness of the coffee. When you take a sip, notice this thickness, the creamy mouthfeel and milky feeling you get. The flavours of cocoa, dark chocolate and whole grain are immediately apparent and a nutty aspect comes along while slurping. Swallowing the coffee will add one more flavour to the palette and that is the sugary sweetness of cookies/biscuit. This is not a complex coffee at all but it really does do what it’s roasted for: being a good espresso coffee.
The Surinam robusta also makes this coffee perfect for being used in a latte based drink! The thickness and chocolate/cocoa flavour really adds up to the frothed milk of a cappuccino. With this coffee in the mix, you will not need any sugar at all. But even when you use this in a latte or a macchiato you will not need any sugar or syprup. The chocolate/cocoa flavour together with the sweetness is more than enough.
Sweetie Coffee – Suricoffee: The verdict.
Radjen Battja has roasted a good espresso blend made out of Surinam Robusta and Brazilian Arabica. It does what it is supposed to do and works as an espresso and latte-based drink. The crema is nice and thick, the flavours last for a long time and the price/quality is also very good (around six euro for a bag of 250gr) So if you are in Paramaribo, Surinam…Sweetie Coffee is the place to visit.